ELCA Assembly Opens with Worship

CHICAGO (ELCA) - The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding
bishop, welcomed the participants of the 2007 Churchwide Assembly
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Aug. 6 with
a sermon at the opening worship. Hanson's message was focused on
the difference between a "sent" and "settled" church.
The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of
the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 6 to 11 at Navy Pier's Festival
Hall. About 2,000 people are participating, including 1,071 ELCA
voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is "Living
in God's Amazing Grace: Thanks be to God!"
"I want to share with you the question that has most
preoccupied me as we have prepared for this assembly. It is
this: will we gather at Navy Pier for the 10th churchwide
assembly of the ELCA out of our longing to be a settled church or
out of our conviction that we are a sent church?" said Hanson.
"Sometimes I wonder even worry that for far too many of us
ELCA stands for 'Expectations Low. Climbing Anxiety'," said
Hanson during his sermon. "A church body with low expectations
for what the Holy Spirit is doing and can do in our lives and
through our ministries. A church with climbing anxieties that
our differences-- especially over human sexuality-- inevitably
will lead to divisions. A church body that views declining
membership as a prelude to almost certain demise. Such a church
body will be tempted to become a settled church."

"Members of a settled church may find it acceptable that 30
percent of the members are in worship weekly given all the
competing demands on our harried and hurried lives. Members of a
sent church are prayerfully discerning the variety of spiritual
gifts given to each of the baptized. Shaped by living memory of
the past, they are giving generously and constantly asking how
God's money might serve God's mission for the sake of the world,"
he said.
"As a sent, scattered people, we will be gathered each day
around the means of grace [this week], speaking the truth that it
has not gone as well as God desires, for we are captive to sin
and cannot free ourselves," said Hanson.
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* Lauren A. Lamb is a senior public relations and speech
communication major at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
This summer she is an intern with the ELCA News Service.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
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